Life and Times in The TARDIS
by Balek
Summary: What really goes on in the TARDIS when The Doctor and his companions are not out saving planets, fighting monsters and doing an awful lot of running? Can life ever be so normal in such a strange setting?
1. Chapter 1

He was in the darkness, surrounded by his enemies, and haunted by the faces of the dead. All those he had lost; his friends, his family and those whose deaths he had caused. He was running, always endlessly running, yet he could not leave his nightmares behind. The light at the end of the tunnel never got any closer. He was stuck. The blood rushed in his head, panic took hold, fear started to grip his soul. There was no escape now; his luck had finally run out. The creatures around him started to close in. As a metal hand clamped down on his shoulder behind him, he slowly turned and looked into the eyes of his enemies and saw only burning hatred. He sunk to his knees, resigned to his fate, and waited for the shock that would mean the end of his existence…

The Doctor bolted upright in his bed, his sonic screwdriver falling and rolling across the floor as he disturbed where it had been lying on the pillow next to him. He was short of breath, his brow damp with sweat. Every time he fell asleep he had nightmares, and every time they got worse, eating more and more at his soul until one day there would be nothing left, and he became no better than the monsters in his dreams. He threw off his covers onto the floor and swung his legs over the side. He could still feel panic gripping his hearts and his mind was still racing. He took deep breaths, closed his eyes and listened for the low soothing hum of the TARDIS that was always present in the background. Within a few seconds his fear drained away and he opened his eyes again and scanned the floor to find his sonic screwdriver. Even though the room was dark there was a chink of light coming through the gap at the bottom of the door, and so the Doctor could make out the familiar shapes in the room around him. It was sparsely furnished from the bed in which the Doctor occasionally slept in and the desk on which was piled many pieces of broken or scavenged equipment he had dumped on it throughout the many years. Slung over the back the worn and battered chair next to the desk was his trusty jacket. Underneath the chair was the sonic screwdriver, the light from the corridor glinting off the metal. The Doctor walked over to the chair, grabbed his jacket and put it over his shoulders, the fabric slightly rough on his bare torso. He retrieved his screwdriver and put it in his pocket. The Doctor knew he would not get back to sleep for a while and so decided to have a walk through the great expanse of the TARDIS. Opening the door to his room, he stepped out into the dimly lit corridor and headed towards the kitchen. His bare feet padded along the cold metal floor and he found the cooling sensation spreading through his body very refreshing. His mind began to wander as he walked along; he subdued the memory of the nightmare and began to think of the cup of tea he was on his way to make.

Within a minute or so he reached the kitchen, its lights activating as the TARDIS knew he had stepped through the door. The Doctor smiled and felt for the telepathic connection the two of them shared and mentally hugged the heart of the TARDIS in his mind. The background hum changed pitched ever so slightly, as it acknowledged the increased telepathic contact and both of them shared their happiness of their company across the link. The Doctor loved his TARDIS, battered and outdated though it may be, and even if Gallifrey was still orbiting out there in the cold, dark universe, he would never trade it in for a sleeker model. It was special to him, and not just because it was the last one in existence, and he could not imagine a life without it, even if they did have disagreements more often than not. The telepathic connection started to decrease, reverting back to the comforting presence in his mind that had constantly been there for so many centuries, and the Doctor's mind drifted back to the thought of the tea. He flicked the switch on the kettle which he had picked up on earth about 4 years previously and had adapted slightly so it could refill itself. Opening the ornately decorated cupboard he brought out a large Thermos flask and chucked in a teabag from the box that it had been sitting next to. Almost all the cups the Doctor used for tea throughout his reincarnations had been broken or lost when the TARDIS had crashed in Amy's garden in 1996, leaving him only two options on how to drink his tea. Either he could drink it from the Thermos flask or be uncouth and drink it straight from the teapot which had pretty much survived the crash. However, it had a large crack running along the bottom so it was really only useful as decoration until the Doctor got around to fixing it. That would probably not be any time soon as the tube of super-glue had been misplaced and the Doctor did not fancy having to tip the place upside down to find it. He knew he'll probably find it in the jacket of his previous regeneration, along with a lot of other junk. That was the only problem with having pockets that were bigger on the inside; you acquire a lot of unusual but probably worthless stuff. The pockets of his current jacket were already filling up and he could feel it starting to slow him down when he was running, it was getting pretty heavy. He needed to get around to using some of the debris in his room to make a device which cancelled out the weight of pocket junk, but that would have to wait for a time when everyone in the universe got along for a few hours, and that hardly ever happened…

The kettle finished boiling and so the Doctor poured the water into the flask and watched as the water got darker and darker as the taste of the leaves infused throughout the molecules of water. When it reached the perfect strength, which he could tell from the shade alone he dug into his inside pocket on his jacket and brought out the teaspoon that he kept in there. He fished out the teabag from where it had sunk to the bottom of the flask, burning his finger slightly on the water as the spoon was not quite long enough to reach the teabag and fished it out. Then he tapped his right foot four times and the small metal bin which was in an alcove on the other side of the room came towards him on its small motorised wheels. When it reached him it opened automatically and he threw the teabag into it on top of the pile of other waste that was in it and tapped his foot against the side of it. The lid snapped shut and the bin moved back into the alcove. Next time the TARDIS came across a black hole or interstellar recycling plant, the Doctor decided he would empty it but there was no rush, the bin had a system to keep the rubbish in a suspended animation of sorts so it didn't rot. The Doctor patted his pockets and then, feeling what he was looking for, put his hand in the outside left pocket and brought out a small paper packet, ripped it open and poured the powdered milk into the tea before stirring it. He got the lid out of the cupboard, screwed it on tightly and then dried the teaspoon off on his jacket and popped it back in the pocket from which he had got it from. He walked back out of the kitchen, the lights switching off automatically as the door closed. Padding down the corridor, he passed the room in which Amy and Rory were sleeping. He went past the door quietly, and continued on his walk through the many miles of corridors, sipping the tea as he went.


	2. Chapter 2

A few hours later the TARDIS increased the light intensity of the room very slowly and the people within started to stir. Amy was the first one to wake, closely followed by Rory and they both stretched their stiff muscles caused by the almost constant running that seemed to go with the Doctor hand in hand. Amy, wearing a baggy pink top and black shorts, grabbed her large towel that was hanging on a hook on the wall and her clothes that she had set out the day before and went into the en suite bathroom, through a door in the wood panelled wall. Rory didn't always approve of the Doctor's taste in interior decorating but this room had a calm and cosy feeling to it. He heard the shower in the bathroom start up and he so got out of bed. He folded back the duvet and smoothed out the creases in the sheets. Once that was done he opened the small wardrobe in which he kept his clothes. There was not as much choice of clothes as there were in the large wardrobe in the depths of the TARDIS but he liked to have a few sets of clothes nearby. He took out a blue t-shirt and his favourite pair of jeans. He had just found his belt and placed the clothes on the bed when Amy came back into the room, fully dressed and the towel draped over her shoulders. Her hair was damp and the water droplets on it glistened under the lights in the ceiling. She was as beautiful as ever and Rory felt very lucky to have her as his wife. He walked over to her and looped an arm around her waist, kissing her on the cheek before turning to go have a shower himself. Amy looped the wet towel around before he could escape and spun him back round to face her. They looked into each others eyes for a moment and then she kissed him passionately on the lips. After a few seconds she broke off and ran a hand through his slightly greasy hair before running both of them down his body to his waist and gently twanging the elastic waistband of his pyjama bottoms. He smiled at her and then wriggled out of her trap, before grabbing his own towel and his clothes before escaping to have a shower. Amy watched him go, her eyes drawn to the shadows forming on his bare back as he walked under the little spotlights in the ceiling. She put her towel back on the hook from which it came and then opened the bedroom door. The slightly harsher light of the corridor outside made her squint slightly but her eyes soon adjusted. She headed towards the nearby washing room to get her clothes which got splattered with mud the day before when they had taken a break from saving the universe and went quad biking on the Mud Mountains of Koala Rens. That had been a hilarious afternoon. The Doctor had suddenly transformed into more of a boy racer than he is when flying the TARDIS and had bombed down the mountain at full speed, splashing mud everywhere, and then had ended up sliding down half of the hill on his back after he fell off. He was laughing all the way down, even when he had landed in the large muddy puddle at the bottom. He was in a state by the end of the three hours they spent there, his clothes were filthy and he had clumps of mud stuck in his hair. He had left his jacket in the console room so at least that was still clean. Amy sent him back to the TARDIS to clean up while she and Rory returned the equipment to the activities centre which was run by talking alien bears. The two of them then went to find clean sets of clothes themselves and chucked the dirt encrusted ones into the washing room just before they had gone to bed. Even though they saw some really terrible things throughout the universe and were faced with death nearly every day, she did have to admit that they had some great fun as well. It was the way the Doctor did things; he would save a few civilisations and planets and then go and have some childish fun such as quad biking to de-stress.

She walked into the small washing room, which was completely bare apart from the three neatly folded piles of clothes on the tiled floor. She found her red jumper neatly folded on top of the pile of her clothes. She picked it up; it was comfortingly warm, as if it had just come out of a tumble drier. She still hadn't worked out how clothes got washed in the TARDIS, the Doctor never did anything apart from throw his dirty clothes into the room, and told her to do the same. The door would lock at the same time every night and then would unlock about five hours later, where the clothes would be washed, dried and neatly folded into three piles depending on whose clothes they were, gently infused with the fragrance of blackcurrants. Both Rory and herself has asked the Doctor how it was done but he would just smile and tap the side of his nose, calling it a top secret Time Lord solution which the human race was not ready to discover. Eventually they decided to accept the fact that he was not going to tell them any time soon. She unfolded the jumper, it was pristine, with no evidence of the quad biking left on it, and put in on, the warmth of it spreading through her body. She picked up the other two piles of clothes and headed back into the corridor. She walked back to the room which she shared with Rory and opened the door. She could hear the shower still running and so put her husband's clothes on the bed before heading out again. The Doctor's room was about 50 metres down the passageway from 'The Pond's Den' as he called it. Amy noticed the door was still closed, which was unusual as it was usually left open as he always needed some of the 'useful' pieces of junk that were dumped in there. Amy knocked on the door, but there was no answer from within. She tried the door handle and found it unlocked and opened it slowly. She stuck her head around it and looked towards the bed, half expecting to see a gently snoring Time Lord. She was slightly surprised to see it empty, the only evidence that he had been there being the imprint of his body on it. She decided to put his clothing on the bed. Once she had done so she walked back to try and work out where he would be. Standing in the corridor she could hear a faint rhythmic thumping coming from her right, in the direction of the console room. She smiled and followed the noise, knowing that there was really only one person who would make it. As she got closer, the thumping got louder and she recognised it as rock music. She rolled her eyes and continued walking until she came to the room, coming out of the corridor to be standing on the high platform on the side. The music was blaring out of the old style gramophone speaker on the console. From her high vantage point she could see the whole room and it didn't take her long to spot the Doctor. He was dancing around the console platform, using his sonic screwdriver as imaginary guitar, his hair flying about everywhere, completely oblivious to the fact he was being witnessed by Amy. He had still not got dressed into his day clothes, he was still in the red, flowery beach shorts he wore instead of pyjamas and his jacket over his bare torso, its sleeves rolled up. She watched him, her arms crossed, not saying a word, just watching the performance in front of her. He suddenly spun around on the spot, punching the air and ended facing towards Amy, spotting her in an instant. He suddenly looked very embarrassed and pointed the screwdriver in the direction of the console. The music cut off and the console room was suddenly very quiet. The Doctor flicked his fringe out of his eyes and gave an embarrassed cough.

"No, no, keep going." Amy said with a big grin on her face "I was enjoying the show."

The Doctor rolled his jacket sleeves back down. He looked thoughtful for a minute, as if he was debating whether to continue, and even maybe get Amy to join in with him and then decided against it. He walked up the stairs to join her on the platform and ruffled her now slightly damp hair.

"Sorry Pond, the show's over. Next time, buy a ticket."

"A ticket for what exactly. The bow-tie wearing alien head-banger dance show?" Amy replied, still grinning. "Now that I would pay good money to see!"

"Oi!" The Doctor gave her a friendly thump on the arm. "You don't bite the hand that feeds so don't insult the pilot that invited you along for the adventure. And anyway, I'm not wearing a bow tie!" He dug in his right hand pocket of his jacket, brought out his bow tie and tied it around his bare neck "And now I am, and anyway, bow ties are cool!"

"That reminds me, I was coming to find you to tell you that I've picked up your clothes from the washing room and they're now on your bed."

"Cheers Pond. By the way, has Rory dusted the tertiary control room yet? That was our agreement. He wanted to go quad biking and so I agreed to pay for all of you as long as he did something I've been meaning to do for a while." He stopped and looked thoughtful for a second. "Actually, I don't think I've ever dusted in there thinking about it…"

"Tell me about it, I couldn't stop sneezing when I went in there" They both heard Rory's voice behind them and turned to face him. He was now fully dressed and raised an eyebrow at what the Doctor was wearing before putting an arm around Amy.

"I've done about half of the console in there but it'll take me at least a week to do the whole room, the dust is caked on."

The Doctor laughed and patted him on the back. "You'll get there eventually Rory. Right, I'll go and get dressed and then what do you think about breakfast. I was thinking pancakes on the shores of the maple syrup lakes of the Revisited Sugar World of the Horned Council."

"Sounds good to me" Amy replied. "Shall I go and find the ladle for the syrup?"

"You go do that, find a large bucket too while you're at it. I'll be back soon and then we can head off." The Doctor bounded up the stairs and walked down the corridor towards his bedroom. Amy and Rory went in the opposite direction towards one of the many store rooms. As he walked along the Doctor smiled. He may have lost so many throughout the centuries and was haunted by the many nightmares each night but during the day all of that was forgotten, his hearts would heal slightly and he could enjoy the universe with those lucky few who came across him in their otherwise dull lives, and who could be sad when they had the whole of time and space at their fingertips?


End file.
